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Obama regrets not spending more time with his mother

Two weeks before Mother's Day, President Obama told young people in Malaysia on Sunday that one of his biggest regrets is not spending more time with his own mom. "There was a stretch of time from when I was,

Obama regrets not spending more time with his mother

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Two weeks before Mother's Day, President Obama told young people in Malaysia on Sunday that one of his biggest regrets is not spending more time with his mom.

"There was a stretch of time from when I was, let's say, 20 until I was 30 where I was so busy with my own life that I didn't always reach out and communicate with her and ask her how she was doing and tell her about things," Obama said during a youth town hall in Kuala Lumpur.

Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, contracted cancer and died in November 1995. She passed away less than a month before her 53rd birthday — just a year or so older than the president is now, he told his audience.

"It happened very fast, in about six months," Obama said of his mother's fatal illness.

Obama said he would always "call and write once in a while," but not as much as he would have now liked.

"What you remember in the end, I think, is the people you love," Obama said. "I realized that I didn't ... every single day, or at least more often, just spend time with her and find out what she was thinking and what she was doing, because she had been such an important part of my life."